#2 Loss vs MIA, Umpire Data, Grant Holmes and Rain

[00:00:01] Good morning. A little bit of a later start today with the day game in the bad weather and just kind of hanging out to see whether or not we'd get any news, but not going to be the case. So off to the ballpark we go. But the weather looks brutal today. Be careful out there. The tornado warnings that are out there, they're low, but there is certainly a possibility. But heavy rain coming at some point today, but hopefully we get it in. And who knows, it could be one of those games that we start and try to get those five innings in if possible. But I think baseball has been better and better about not starting starting games. If they don't think they can get at least five innings in, you don't want to burn starting pitching. And it's so early in the season, there's so many opportunities to make up those games, especially with a team in your division. The Marlins come back to truist in August for a four game series. So if we do get rained out today, my guess would be that's when we would end up making up that game. Something I was thinking about today, the emotions of being a local broadcaster. When I first got into this business, I was fortunate to start with Fox and I was calling national games probably a dozen, if 15 a year, you know, once a week, if that during the season. And one thing that really caught my attention early in my career is we'd go to teams that I always go the day early, a day early, talk to the local broadcasters, guys that I know in radio and tv. And I always noticed that their mood seemed to reflect how the team was doing. And it just really caught me, caught my attention, caught me by surprise a little bit because I remember thinking, well, you know, why do they care so much? Why would how they feel, how their mood is, be reflective of how the team on the field is playing? And I did those national broadcasts for six years and I got into local. And then I realized right away why that is. Because as a local broadcaster, you dig in with this team, you are emotionally attached to the wins and losses of the team, just like the fans are. And so you kind of ride that wave. And I bring that up because I think we all felt it yesterday after the big win for the home opener, yesterday's game, last night's game, Getting shut out 4, nothing did not feel so great. Always try to make sure that you never pick up on that on the broadcast, right? You're always trying to stay positive while you're also keeping your integrity intact. You're not going to be blowing smoke either all the time. But try to stay positive, try to give people a reason why they want to watch the game, try to bring them inside a little bit further and what we're looking at. But that was discouraging yesterday. There's no two ways about it. If we play this game today, they need to win and San Diego Contra is a really tough opponent and so there'll be some challenges there for sure. But we'll find out here in a little bit. Whether or not we're actually going to play this game today doesn't mean the Braves can't beat a really good pitcher. They've done in the past. It's just one of the offenses. Big been down a little bit. It can be somewhat discouraging. Something I wanted to bring up that came up yesterday was what the information that I bring to the table regarding umpires and how we kind of do that. I'm very fortunate to have access to some good data. One of the companies out there called True Media has really good umpire data and what they have is heat maps and you can kind of tailor, make them how far back you want to go. Do you want to see how umpires are against left handed hitters, right handed hitters? What do the tendencies look like? You can also put in left handed pitchers, right handed pitcher, you can split it up a bunch of different ways to get a real feel. And I put some time in that because I think it's, it's useful. What I think we have to keep in mind is that these guys are human and it's not always going to go the way that the tendencies tell us. I was pretty surprised yesterday. We had two starting pitchers in A.J. smith, Shawver and Cal Quantrill who both throw the split finger. You look at the tendencies for Junior Valentine last year in the 29 games that he was behind the plate and he just didn't call pitches below the zone at all. Right on the black. He was pretty good, but he just did not open it up. Over the course of 30 games, that's or 29 games. That's what the tendencies told us. I did go back and look at the first game he called this year and he did get a lot bigger. And I think based on what we saw last night, there are a lot of pitches below the zone and just off the plate that were down and off the plate that were called strikes. So the tendencies did not stick last night to what we've usually seen from Junior Valentine. And I know it's frustrating sometimes for fans I tell you something, and then it doesn't go that way. But I'm going based off the tendencies and what we have seen. But these guys are human beings and they make mistakes. Quite honestly. And I haven't looked at the score card yet for today. It did feel like the Atlanta Braves probably got a little bit hosed, at least. You know, you look at kind of the plus minus and which team had the worst end of it. Feel like it was us. Find out later when I take a peek at it. It doesn't matter. I will tell you this. After seeing ABs and spring training, I'm on board. I'm on board with the challenge system. Four or five years ago, I was absolutely against the idea of abs. Any version of automated strike zone. I still want human umpires out there calling balls and strikes, but there were some pretty big spots. We talked about the broadcast. You'll see it throughout the game where a missed call can really be significant. So that was a tough one. Not making excuses for this offense. They have their own things that they're worrying about and working on. But there was more than a handful of times where calls didn't feel like they went that way. The Braves and going back to what the data that we use and I use for games to prepare, it didn't really match with what we saw last night. So that was a little bit frustrating for sure. Grant Holmes going tonight or today, I guess I should say excited for him if he didn't catch the last broadcast while he did a really good job digging in on that kick change up that he is throwing. It's a really kind of fascinating pitch. It's the new pitch right now, right, with sweeper a couple years ago. And now here we are with the kick change. It's a change up that is designed for guys that throw a certain way. Most pitchers are pronators, but some are what they call supinators. And that means if you're a supernatur, a lot of traditional pitches might not necessarily work for you. And so the development of what they call this kick change, which is essentially kind of holding somewhat similar to maybe a two seam changeup fastball kind of grip, a mix of that, but then you have your index finger that is kind of up, almost like you're throwing a knuckle curveball, except you're not turning that wrist in, you're not trying to break off that pitch and actually throw a breaking ball. So it's an interesting phenomenon that's going on in the game right now when you throw a Good one. It is pretty filthy. It is pretty nasty. That is something that Grant Holmes has worked on. He is getting this run now as a starter. I'll say this, you know, Grant Holmes was such a great story last year and I do think he can stick in this rotation. And quite honestly, the Braves need him now more than ever. With Ronaldo Lopez down, Spencer Stryer will come back and then that still kind of fills that spot. So you have Bryce elder, you have A.J. smith, Shawver and you have Grant Holmes as the kind of three for those final two spots when Strider does take his turn in the rotation. I think at one point we kind of thought the way things were looking when it was Grant Holmes and Ian Anderson, that when Spencer Strider got back, perhaps we would see then Grant Holmes going to the bullpen where he was great last year. And I think quite honestly the Braves could use that arm. We still got a little bit of a ways to go before the Braves have to make any decisions. But I do like him as a start. He did an unbelievable job for this team last year, if you remember, at the very end of the season and ending in 2/3 and then comes back the very next day and gives the brace four in what was a must win game. So I think we're all Grant Holmes fans, but keep an eye on that change up this afternoon if we get this game in and then we'll see what happens a couple of weeks down the road. But man, what a bummer yesterday was. That was not fun and we will see if the Braves can bounce back. If they don't play today, then you have the off date Monday. So that gives you two days off before they start what will be a pretty big series early on here here and we don't say it too often in April, but against the Philadelphia Phillies. So I'm on my way to the ballpark. Hopefully we are playing some baseball today.